“It’s not theirs, it’s mine” said Trump re documents

[pdq]

More from Maggie Haberman (NYT) putting the lie to They coulda just asked for them.

Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the White House counsel and his deputy under President Donald J. Trump, were interviewed by the F.B.I. in connection with boxes of sensitive documents that were stored at Mr. Trump’s residence…

Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Philbin were Mr. Trump’s representatives to deal with the National Archives; they were named to the positions shortly before the president’s term ended, in January 2021. At some point after National Archives officials realized they did not have Trump White House documents, which are required to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, they contacted Mr. Philbin for help returning them.

Good luck, Mr. Philbin.

Mr. Philbin tried to help the National Archives retrieve the material, two of the people familiar with the discussions said. But the former president repeatedly resisted entreaties from his advisers.

“It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” several advisers say Mr. Trump told them.

Michael Cohen, Allen Weisselberg, the (yet unnamed) lawyer that swore Trump didn’t have any classified docs, and now Pat Cippolone, Pat Philbin, and on and on…the number of bodies run over by Trump’s bus just adds up and up. How this guy gets anyone to work for him is beyond me.

I guess there are suckers born every minute.

[pdq]

Maybe there aren’t suckers born every minute (any more):

Former president Donald Trump and close aides have spent the eight days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is “no.”

… The former president’s current legal team includes a Florida insurance lawyer who’s never had a federal case, a past general counsel for a parking-garage company and a former host at far-right One America News.

…and they’re meeting at Four Seasons Landscaping (jk). miley-laughing001:

Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, defended the quality of the former president’s legal team in a statement Tuesday night…
.
“President Trump is represented by some of the strongest attorneys in the country, and any suggestion otherwise is only driven by envy.”

Hoo boy.

[Ted King]

“It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” several advisers say Mr. Trump told them.

I have been suspecting that if you look at when people in the past have been charged under the same laws that they almost always resorted in a plea of guilty to a misdemeanor, then it seems like Trump would be facing something similar - although he would probably have a hard time pleading guilty to even a misdemeanor (only losers plead guilty), so...

But if it is true that the FBI/DOJ have several witnesses that can attest to Trump saying things like the quote above when being told he had to turn the documents over, then I think that clearly shows his intent was to break the law and that probably takes it out of misdemeanor into felony territory. If the quote above is true, I think Trump could be in for some real trouble.

If he turns out to be in real trouble over this, then the question of why he held onto the documents so long would be hard not the really wonder about. It would be a huge irony that Trump who is masterful at never leaving a clear trail back to him as the decision-maker would have left this clear of a trail on this because of vanity. "It's not theirs, it's mine," could just be an ego driven thing. I doubt, though, that keeping those documents was only about vanity.